robert_cringely
Columnist

Geek Week: Geek-o-naut returns home, researchers go for the foam

analysis
Oct 27, 20082 mins

What do space tourists do when they get home? Will killing your ex's avatar land you in the pokey? Where is that cancer curing beer? Read on for the answers.

Space is the place. Ultima game creator Richard Garriott has just returned from 12 days as a tourist in the International Space Station. There is no truth to the rumor that after Garriott completed his $30 million vacation, he watched a 24-hour cable news station for a couple of hours and begged to be shot back into space as quickly as possible.

Hell hath no fury. In Japan, a 43-year-old woman has been arrested for murdering her virtual husband. The woman became incensed after her online husband divorced her inside the popular Maple Story role playing game, so she went mouse-evil on his a** by logging onto his computer remotely and deleting his lovingly crafted virtual persona. According to news reports, the estranged couple lived 1000 miles apart and have never met in the flesh. She’s now looking at up to 5 years in real prison for breaking into his computer. I dunno, seems to me like a better way to go — cheaper than an attorney, less messy than a blunt instrument.

Jean Paul meets Joe Six Pack. Finally, some scientific research I can get behind. Six Rice University researchers are hard at work developing a beer that helps fight cancer and heart disease. They’re attempting to take resveratrol, the chemical inside red wine that helps keep the French so damned healthy despite a diet consisting largely of heavy cream and stinky cheese, and add it to what I like to think of as America’s Beverage. I think they need field testers, don’t you?

Got geeky news or cancer fighting beer? Send a six pack my way to cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com, or post your thoughts below.

Think you’ve got the right stuff to pass our tech quizzes? They’re not as easy as they look:

• The InfoWorld News Quiz

• Test Your Geek IQ

• Test Your Network Security IQ